Corrections of the year

[ondeadline]

<a href="http://www.regrettheerror.com/regret-articles/crunks-07-the-year-in-media-errors-and-corrections">
According to the Regret the Error Web site, here are the top two of the year:</a>

Correction of the Year
One of the surest ways to produce a great correction is to write a scandalous article filled with salacious, untrue allegations. This year’s winner is a correction to an April article in the Independent Saturday (UK) magazine:

Following the portrait of Tony and Cherie Blair published on 21 April in the Independent Saturday magazine, Ms Blair’s representatives have told us that she was friendly with but never had a relationship with Carole Caplin of the type suggested in the article. They want to make it clear, which we are happy to do, that Ms Blair “has never shared a shower with Ms Caplin, was not introduced to spirit guides or primal wrestling by Ms Caplin (or anyone else), and did not have her diary masterminded by Ms Caplin.”

Runner Up
The Sentinel-Review (Woodstock, Ontario):

In an article in Monday’s newspaper, there may have been a misperception about why a Woodstock man is going to Afghanistan on a voluntary mission. Kevin DeClark is going to Afghanistan to gain life experience to become a police officer when he returns, not to shoot guns and blow things up.
The Sentinel-Review apologizes for any embarrassment this may have caused.

There are lots of other gems in the link.

 

[fishwrapper]

I don't know OD, the runner up is special too.

 

[Damaramu]

What's your correction of the year? If anyone feels like sharing. What's the worst f-up you've made all year?

Those ones in the link are pretty funny. Makes me feel less bad about making some mistakes if I know the big boys do it too. Doesn't make it any less wrong of course.

 

[SoCalDude]

We had a couple of times this past year when newsside had to run corrections for corrections.
And there was another time they spelled the name of a company wrong, did the correction, and the next time they wrote about it, they spelled it wrong again.

 

[Steak Snabler]

Beloved c*nt

 

[td truckers]

This was a high school sports program, but nonetheless it's a GEM...

It was a brief bio of the head basketball coach underneath his mug shot, and when talking about the family it said "He and his wife, somebody, reside in...."

He is a new 23-year old head coach and they didn't know his wife's name yet and left that space blank for her...but never went back and found out her name!!!

He and his wife, SOMEBODY...made it to print in every program!

 

[Barsuk]

Not from this year, but no faux pas in print will ever top the "some ****er" photo cutline. I can't find it online, but there's this newspaper clipping of a basketball team photo, and the cutline lists the players' names -- you know, one of those, "Pictured (from left to right)" deals.

It IDs the players as Joe Blow, Jim Bob Rottencrotch, some ****er, Stevie Blueballs...

Oops.

 

[Damaramu]

Man my worst one was switching two kids. I don't know how I did it but I listed some injured wide receiver as the starting running back in a gamer.
I ran a correction because the kids mom brought my attention to it. But she did it in such a nice way. I've done way less and been killed way worse by parents.
She was super nice and polite. It was weird.

 

[Small Town Guy]

Not from this year, but no faux pas in print will ever top the "some ****er" photo cutline. I can't find it online, but there's this newspaper clipping of a basketball team photo, and the cutline lists the players' names -- you know, one of those, "Pictured (from left to right)" deals.

It IDs the players as Joe Blow, Jim Bob Rottencrotch, some ****er, Stevie Blueballs...

Oops.

I used to have a pddf of that page, but lost the email. One of the more tragic name mixups I saw was at a weekly paper, where the sports editor's column one week was all about how this kid was the star of the football game the week before, what a great kid he is, etc. Unfortunately, he kept calling the kid by his brother's first name. And that brother had died in a car accident three months before.

 

[TwoGloves]

We had a guy once write a high school baseball preview. He said that the team would be without so-and-so, who had a season-ending injury. Couple days later, he writes a correction saying the guy didn't suffer a season-ending "injury" as originally reported. He was dead! Got in a car accident the previous summer. Needless to say, our SE at the time said there was no way we were running that. We'd look like even bigger idiots.

 

[Steak Snabler]

We had a guy once write a high school baseball preview. He said that the team would be without so-and-so, who had a season-ending injury. Couple days later, he writes a correction saying the guy didn't suffer a season-ending "injury" as originally reported. He was dead! Got in a car accident the previous summer. Needless to say, our SE at the time said there was no way we were running that. We'd look like even bigger idiots.

So you're saying the story should have said it was a "career-ending" injury instead?

 

[playthrough]

Man my worst one was switching two kids. I don't know how I did it but I listed some injured wide receiver as the starting running back in a gamer.
I ran a correction because the kids mom brought my attention to it. But she did it in such a nice way. I've done way less and been killed way worse by parents.
She was super nice and polite. It was weird.

The polite ones always make you feel worse. The angry, belligerent parents should take note.

 

[deskslave]

My favorite's down the list a little bit, from the Guardian.

"We misspelled the word misspelled twice, as mispelled, in the Corrections and clarifications column on September 26, page 30."

 

[statrat]

Man my worst one was switching two kids. I don't know how I did it but I listed some injured wide receiver as the starting running back in a gamer.
I ran a correction because the kids mom brought my attention to it. But she did it in such a nice way. I've done way less and been killed way worse by parents.
She was super nice and polite. It was weird.

The polite ones always make you feel worse. The angry, belligerent parents should take note.

I feel terrible whenever someone kindly points out a mistake...

My favorite is the one about Anna Nicole Smith and that when then Playboy scout spotted her she could "barely right a sentance." Brilliant.

 

[GB-Hack]

My favorite's down the list a little bit, from the Guardian.

"We misspelled the word misspelled twice, as mispelled, in the Corrections and clarifications column on September 26, page 30."

The Guardian has a reputation as being error-riddled in Britain, so much so that the papers pet name is The Grauniad.

 

[pressmurphy]

We had a guy once write a high school baseball preview. He said that the team would be without so-and-so, who had a season-ending injury. Couple days later, he writes a correction saying the guy didn't suffer a season-ending "injury" as originally reported. He was dead! Got in a car accident the previous summer. Needless to say, our SE at the time said there was no way we were running that. We'd look like even bigger idiots.

The competitor in our town did a season preview 18 or 20 years ago. They did a "swimmers to watch" breakout box obviously just derived from agate of previous year's league championship meets. One of the kids they listed died over the summer in a traffic accident that eventually led to arrests and lawsuits. Kid was identifed as deceased at least five times in our paper and another five in theirs between the time of the accident and the sorry-ass preview.

 

[forever_town]

Not from this year, but no faux pas in print will ever top the "some ****er" photo cutline. I can't find it online, but there's this newspaper clipping of a basketball team photo, and the cutline lists the players' names -- you know, one of those, "Pictured (from left to right)" deals.

It IDs the players as Joe Blow, Jim Bob Rottencrotch, some ****er, Stevie Blueballs...

Oops.

The closest I can come to that is the community college rag where I got my start. Instead of writing, "Below is the biographical information about the candidates" for a piece on Student Governance Board candidates, they used the word "biological."

What's your correction of the year? If anyone feels like sharing. What's the worst f-up you've made all year?

I made one hell of a blunder earlier this year. I wrote a column in which I basically called a guy a crook when he hadn't been indicted. That cuts way beyond serious **** up.

 

[EE94]

Here's your winner:

New York Daily News:

A HEADLINE in Monday’s Daily News, “He regrets his role in ‘postal’ vid,” implied that Richard Marino, the subject of a YouTube video, was sorry for an incident in December at a Brooklyn post office. Marino, in fact, is not sorry. The News regrets the error.

 

[wisportswriter]

Only I knew why it was so terrible, but still ...

"In a story on Such and Such Date, the Bumble**** Rag reported the wrong year that was the last time Area School failed to win its conference football championship."

Why so stupid?
I played on the team that last failed to win the conference football championship.
Doubly painful.

We have a great running joke on our staff between myself and two colleagues over the dumbest mistakes we've made. The aformentioned is mine; another got the final score wrong in a Big Ten football gamer; the other may be the winner: he has misspelled his own name in his byline ... twice.

 

[Steak Snabler]

I once worked with a copy editor who called a guy who was practicing medicine without a license a "fake doctor" in a headline. The guy was in fact licensed to practice medicine, just not in our state.

Almost 20 years later, and the copy editor was still paying for the six-figure settlement out of his paycheck to the tune of $25 per week.